Is Obama the Derek Jeter of Politics?

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Derek Jeter come up to bat for my beloved New York Yankees. It was 1995, and he was 21 years old—a year older than me. I can’t remember what pitcher he was facing, but it was somebody much older, much more experienced, much more impressive at that time. You could tell Jeter was nervous, but how he dealt with it was telling. He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled quickly, tilted his head back and forth to release a bit of tension, then looked out at the pitcher with an expression we would soon come to know and love: eyebrows up, eyelids low, the trace of a smile at the edges of his mouth. The message was clear: Let’s do this.

Last night, as you’ve probably heard, Jeter notched three hits to tie Lou Gehrig’s record for the most career base hits of any New York Yankee in history. The record certainly snuck up on me; I was astonished last week when I heard he was about to break it. But it also makes perfect sense. Tim Raines once said, “Jeter loves hitting too much to be a great hitter.” It was a very stupid thing to say, but also very revealing. Jeter doesn’t wait for the perfect pitch every time up so he can swat it into the stands. He is the ultimate situational hitter. He’ll take what you throw him and find a way to get the job done. If the team needs a single, he’ll hit that. If a sac fly is what’s called for, he’ll aim for that. And if a home run is what you really need, he’s proven time and time again that he can deliver that too.

Maybe it’s a stretch, but I see a similarity between Jeter and Barack Obama. Yes, they’re both sons of black fathers and white mothers, but what’s more interesting is the way both project an image of cool, confident ultra-competence that has allowed them to scale the loftiest heights of their respective professions.Last night, Obama stepped up to the plate and executed the political equivalent of a three-hit game. There was no home run, no matter what Barbara Boxer thought she saw. Those of us who wished he would swing for the fences, scrap this impossibly complicated and compromised reform package, and serve up a single-payer plan we can believe in were disappointed. But that would have been a low-percentage move, and it wasn’t what the situation called for. Obama knows that this plan, ugly as it may be, will make life better for a lot of people, and better is better than nothing.

It’s funny to think that Obama is 13 years older than Jeter, since Jeter is nearing the end of his career and Obama, one suspects, is still near the beginning of his. But I’d like to think that, by playing the game his way, Obama will recover just fine from his recent slump (hey, even Jeter went hitless for a few games earlier this week) and enjoy a long, productive career.